You will be rewarded a maximum of 3 points if I judge your work to be above average. You will receive 2 points if your work is average, that is it may have a few minor mistakes in some of the answers but demonstrates correct grammar and indicates that some, but not all, of the answers, are acceptable and well expressed. You will earn only 1 point if you simply answered the questions and/or if you use poor grammar and if there are signs that you have not read the material on which your answers are based.
Note: Like other plays we have dealt with, the construction of this play is unique and often challenging to readers. It generally works well on the stage but not so well in the study. So, the questions posed about the construction of the play do not easily follow Ball’s method of analysis. So, I have taken the liberty to change up some of the questions.
1. You may identify the stasis in the play but it isn’t necessarily at the beginning of the play. Where is it and who does it involve? NOTE: Do not assume that the stasis of the play is the same as the stasis of the video version that you are required to see. Only discuss the play in this and answers to the following questions. The stasis is not in the beginning of this play, but rather in Act 4. It is set in Crown Heights Brooklyn, New York August of 1991. It is right before Rabbi Joseph Spielman providing his account of what happened when Gavin Cato was killed and Yankel Rosenbaum was stabbed. He maintains that the black community, wanting to start anti-Semitic riots, lied about those events. In contrast to Rabbi Joseph Spielman is Reverend Canon Doctor Heron Sam, whose resentment toward the Lubavitcher Grand Rebbe is clear. He claims that the Grand Rebbe’s people were reckless, and that the death of Gavin Cato was not a cause of concern to them. Next, the audience receives an account from an anonymous Crown Heights man, who says that the police neither arrest Jews nor offer blacks justice. Thus the stasis involves both the Black and the Jewish community.
2. Ball points out that the intrusion sometimes occurs late in the dramatic action. What is the intrusion that breaks the stasis in Fires in the MIrror and how is it broken? The stasis is broken in the fourth act after Rabbi Joseph Spielman gives his statement on Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum, specifically when the first section of the final act ends with Michael S. Miller’s assertion that the Crown Heights black community is anti-Semitic. This breaks the stasis because it sets in motion the following conflict between the two communities.
3. Why do the events of the play take place at this particular time and place? In other words, what is the unique factor that is out of the ordinary that causes a turn of events to take place? Hint: the unique factor may have something to do with you? How does the title figure in your answer? The unique factor is that the author wants to tell the full story of the accident between Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum occurred. The titles figures in by being a metaphor for what happened: the tensions in the play were caused by the differences in the interpretation of the facts regarding the accident between the Black boy on the bike and the Jewish driver of the vehicle. Backwards. The way they saw it, the way it was reflected, was different depending on who was looking in the mirror.
4. State the dramatic questions that must be answered by the end of the play? (Ordinarily, the dramatic question shares a close connection with the intrusion.) What does the mirror have to do with the story? What will happen to the Black and Jewish communities?
5. Use the narrator of the work to answer the questions concerning character. Ball says, a character is revealed by what he/she does, ie. The dramatic actions that are taken. Examine what these particular characters wants. The wants of a character often encounter obstacles that get in the way of achieving those wants. Ball says there are 4 kinds of obstacles that frustrate the wants of a character. They are: a. Me against myself, b. Me against another individual, c. Me against society (that is law, social norms, etc.) and, d. Me against fate, the universe, natural forces, God or the gods. In answering these questions be sure to point to the particular obstacles that demonstrate these obstacles facing the narrator. Me against another individual: when Anna Smith plays a Jewish or African American character who is fighting against the other community for justice. Me against society: The narrator is trying to tell a story that had different interpretations depending on what community/section of society a person was in.
6. The most important information in most plays takes place during theatrical moments. Identify the most theatrical moments in Fires in the Mirror. I think most of the interviews were dramatic, so its hard to choose just one. Perhaps the most dramatic was when Letty returns to share a story about how her family member survived the Holocaust by having to participate in a Nazi gassing, and eventually died out of grief of telling the story. Rabbi Joseph Spielman’s account of the car accident is another dramatic scene. The theatricality of his monologue is very moving because we get a first hand account of the accident.
Note: Like other plays we have dealt with, the construction of this play is unique and often challenging to readers. It generally works well on the stage but not so well in the study. So, the questions posed about the construction of the play do not easily follow Ball’s method of analysis. So, I have taken the liberty to change up some of the questions.
1. You may identify the stasis in the play but it isn’t necessarily at the beginning of the play. Where is it and who does it involve? NOTE: Do not assume that the stasis of the play is the same as the stasis of the video version that you are required to see. Only discuss the play in this and answers to the following questions.
The stasis is not in the beginning of this play, but rather in Act 4. It is set in Crown Heights Brooklyn, New York August of 1991. It is right before Rabbi Joseph Spielman providing his account of what happened when Gavin Cato was killed and Yankel Rosenbaum was stabbed. He maintains that the black community, wanting to start anti-Semitic riots, lied about those events. In contrast to Rabbi Joseph Spielman is Reverend Canon Doctor Heron Sam, whose resentment toward the Lubavitcher Grand Rebbe is clear. He claims that the Grand Rebbe’s people were reckless, and that the death of Gavin Cato was not a cause of concern to them. Next, the audience receives an account from an anonymous Crown Heights man, who says that the police neither arrest Jews nor offer blacks justice. Thus the stasis involves both the Black and the Jewish community.
2. Ball points out that the intrusion sometimes occurs late in the dramatic action. What is the intrusion that breaks the stasis in Fires in the MIrror and how is it broken?
The stasis is broken in the fourth act after Rabbi Joseph Spielman gives his statement on Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum, specifically when the first section of the final act ends with Michael S. Miller’s assertion that the Crown Heights black community is anti-Semitic. This breaks the stasis because it sets in motion the following conflict between the two communities.
3. Why do the events of the play take place at this particular time and place? In other words, what is the unique factor that is out of the ordinary that causes a turn of events to take place? Hint: the unique factor may have something to do with you? How does the title figure in your answer?
The unique factor is that the author wants to tell the full story of the accident between Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum occurred. The titles figures in by being a metaphor for what happened: the tensions in the play were caused by the differences in the interpretation of the facts regarding the accident between the Black boy on the bike and the Jewish driver of the vehicle. Backwards. The way they saw it, the way it was reflected, was different depending on who was looking in the mirror.
4. State the dramatic questions that must be answered by the end of the play? (Ordinarily, the dramatic question shares a close connection with the intrusion.)
What does the mirror have to do with the story? What will happen to the Black and Jewish communities?
5. Use the narrator of the work to answer the questions concerning character. Ball says, a character is revealed by what he/she does, ie. The dramatic actions that are taken. Examine what these particular characters wants. The wants of a character often encounter obstacles that get in the way of achieving those wants. Ball says there are 4 kinds of obstacles that frustrate the wants of a character. They are: a. Me against myself, b. Me against another individual, c. Me against society (that is law, social norms, etc.) and, d. Me against fate, the universe, natural forces, God or the gods. In answering these questions be sure to point to the particular obstacles that demonstrate these obstacles facing the narrator.
Me against another individual: when Anna Smith plays a Jewish or African American character who is fighting against the other community for justice.
Me against society: The narrator is trying to tell a story that had different interpretations depending on what community/section of society a person was in.
6. The most important information in most plays takes place during theatrical moments. Identify the most theatrical moments in Fires in the Mirror.
I think most of the interviews were dramatic, so its hard to choose just one. Perhaps the most dramatic was when Letty returns to share a story about how her family member survived the Holocaust by having to participate in a Nazi gassing, and eventually died out of grief of telling the story. Rabbi Joseph Spielman’s account of the car accident is another dramatic scene. The theatricality of his monologue is very moving because we get a first hand account of the accident.